Has anyone used a residential conventional mortgage to purchase an owner occupied multi-family property without having prior experience as a land lord?

I'm going to purchase a multi family property in Q1 2016. Keep in mind, this is my first property so I'm currently renting, and I have no qualifying experience as a land lord. I know that through an FHA loan, I will be allowed to use 75% of the gross rents on the other units and apply it toward my qualifying income, without needing prior experience as a landlord. Regarding conventional loans, it seems to me that the typical thought is that you must have 2 years of experience as a land lord before you are able to use future rents as qualifying income. I've found that Fannie Mae DOES have conventional residential loan programs in which I can use expected future rents as qualifying income, without any prior experience as a land lord.

A little bit more about my situation so that you can see why I'm asking these questions in the first place, and perhaps you can provide some more insight:

I'm kind of eying 4 unit properties but also obviously open to anything smaller as long as the numbers work. My goal is at least to effectively live rent free, but I will favor properties that can offer the best net cash flow (including the amount of rent I'm saving by living in my own building). In my area, this is very doable. The only other criteria I have is that I will not sacrifice my current standard of living. The only way I would move into a lower-grade property is if the cash flow is sufficient enough to justify it to myself. This is where I bump into my problem.

The FHA maximum on a 4 unit property in my area is approximately 520,000. This means I will probably be looking for properties in the 550,000 to 600,000 range. Properties of this value in my area are mostly below my current standard of living. I would not live in 80% of the properties in this price range no matter what return I was getting. The other 20% could meet my standard of living, but the numbers don't work out as often or as well. If I found the perfect deal I could make this work, but based on the number of units sold in the area I desire, it may take a year or two for that to happen, and time is not something I want to waste.

The properties that I would like to live in AND have healthy cash flows seem to be in the 700,000 to 900,000 range. Conventional financing has loan limits above 800,000 for 4 units in my area. So why not go conventional and buy something I'm happy to live in? Many times it seems that my potential yields are greater on these more valuable properties anyway (I'm assuming due to the level of competition).

But what about using rents as qualifying income with no land lord experience? This is the big kicker because a large portion of my qualifying income needs to come from future gross rents. This will ultimately determine the type of mortgage I can use and what type of property I can buy. I know for sure that Fannie Mae has programs that allow this, so what am I missing? Is this as possible as it seems on the surface? There must be some obstacle that I'm missing because I cannot find anything about this online. Just pieces all over the place. Why is this? Maybe it's hard to find lenders willing to do this?

As you can see, I'm completely stuck. My next move is completely dependent upon what type of mortgage I can qualify for. Can anyone please give me some insight? Has anyone done this?

Thank you in advance

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